AFP, published Tuesday 04 July 2023 at 13:20.
The United Nations on Tuesday called on governments to anticipate the consequences of the El Niño weather phenomenon that has just begun, which is generally associated with a rise in global temperatures “to save lives and livelihoods”.
The El Niño phenomenon will continue throughout the year with an intensity that is likely to be “at least moderate”, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO, specialized agency of the United Nations), which in turn with a value of 90 “the beginning of the episode “ announces % probability that it will continue in the second half of the year.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Observatory (NOAA) had already announced the arrival of El Niño on June 8th.
The upward effect on global temperatures is usually felt within a year of the phenomenon occurring and is therefore likely to be most noticeable in 2024.
“The arrival of El Niño will dramatically increase the likelihood of breaking temperature records and triggering even more extreme heat in many parts of the world and in the oceans,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement in the organization’s newsletter.
“WMO’s announcement of an El Niño event is a signal to governments around the world to prepare to limit the impact on our health, ecosystems and economies,” he added.
In this context, he emphasizes the importance of early warning systems and measures to anticipate extreme weather phenomena in connection with this major climate phenomenon “to save lives and livelihoods”.
The World Health Organization (WHO) also has concerns. The WHO particularly fears an increase in water-borne diseases such as cholera, but also an increase in epidemics of mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, and cases of infectious diseases such as measles and meningitis, affecting public health, and Environment Director Maria Neira told reporters.
In 2018–2019, an El Niño event was declared in some regions, which was then considered weak. But the WMO did not make the announcement due to “a lack of consensus” at the international level, Wilfran Moufouma Okia, head of the department for regional weather forecast services, told the press.
According to the WMO, the last real El Niño episode was seven years ago, in 2015-2016, and it was of great intensity.
– “New alarm signal” –
The 2018-2019 episode had given way to a particularly lengthy episode of almost three years of La Niña, which caused the opposite effects and notably a drop in temperature.
El Niño occurs on average every two to seven years, and episodes typically last nine to 12 months.
It is a natural climate phenomenon associated with warming sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific. However, the current episode “is part of the context of a climate altered by human activity,” the WMO points out.
In the run-up to the El Niño phenomenon, the WMO forecast in May that at least one of the next five years and the entire five-year period (2023-2027) will be the warmest year on record, beating the 2016 record.
There is also a 66% chance that the global annual average near-surface temperature will temporarily exceed pre-industrial levels by more than 1.5°C for at least one year between 2023 and 2027.
“This does not mean that in the next five years we will exceed the 1.5°C level set by the Paris Agreement, which refers to long-term warming over many years. It’s another wake-up call, though.” said Chris Hewitt, climate services manager at WMO.
El Niño is generally associated with increased rainfall in parts of southern Latin America, the southern United States, the Horn of Africa, and central Asia. It can cause severe droughts in Australia, Indonesia, parts of South Asia and Central America.
On the other hand, its warm waters can fuel hurricanes in the central and eastern Pacific while curbing hurricane generation in the Atlantic basin.